There’s something very strange going on in the public washrooms in Japan – and it has the entire country in an uproar. No, it’s not what you think – someone has been leaving small piles of money in government building lavatories, with notes attached telling the finder to use it to improve themselves.

The bizarre mystery began last April and has since spread from men’s rooms in the northern island of Hokkaido all the way to its southern counterpart in Okinawa. Each mini-bank roll comes wrapped in traditional Japanese washi paper and each has a similar note attached. “Please make use of this money for your self-enrichment,” one reads, with an additional instruction that warns, “one per person.”

The lavatory loot doesn’t amount to much – about $86 in Canadian funds, but after so many months, it’s starting to add up. Officials estimate more than Cdn$17,000 has been left over the last few weeks, and the widespread frequency of the finds and the strange scrawl that accompanies each packet of cash has turned the money mystery into a sensation in the country.

Most are openly wondering who’s behind the strange incidents and why the dough is being left. Investigators know it’s a male – all the money has been discovered in men’s rooms. And they believe he’s quite elderly or ill because his shaky handwriting has been deteriorating since the dollar drops started. Some think it’s a dying man trying to make a difference before he reaches his end. Others speculate a person with a strong religious motive is at work, because the notes use traditional Buddhist phrases. And still more are sure it’s a former civil servant, either trying to cheer up those who are following in his footsteps or poking fun at them.

Just about everyone’s weighing in with a theory. “The fact that the letters end with the phrase ‘please be happy’ points to somebody who’s unhappy themselves — who’s perhaps facing up to their death and wants to give something back to the world,” one expert suggests in a local newspaper.

Whoever it is has chosen his restrooms carefully. None of them have been equipped with security cameras and no one has ever seen a likely candidate coming or going from the area.

So what happens to the money? Police have seized it for now and if no one claims it in six months, the people who found each package will be able to keep it – at which point you might say they’ll be ‘flush’ with cash.